Puppy sitting is really a whole lot like babysitting. They lick you, chew on you, there are poop and pee situations, they smell good yet bad all at once, they freak out for no reason, and they make lots of noise. The main differences between the two are the hair (if your baby is as hairy as a puppy then you have genetic issues that might need some looking into), and the fact that you can leave a puppy home alone, but if you leave a baby home alone, it’s sorta frowned upon. So thank god this is a puppy and not a baby, cuz I can’t possibly stay home all day. No way no how. I cannot be confined to these 4 walls. I have places to go and people to see. This crazy bird has got to fly free. And by the way, I have more than 4 walls. I have, like, eleventy something. Or something. I’m not gonna count them for you guys, because that’s math, and math can suck my balls. But I do have more than 4. Who the hell has 4 walls? Even back in the Little House on the Prairie times the Ingalls family had more than 4. They even had a loft. With a ladder. And a pretty sweet ass barn. At least until that jackass Mary burned it down.

Regardless of the fact that I can leave the house sans puppy, I am still feeling a bit tied down. I can close her up in the office when I go out, but I have to be home within a couple of hours before she poops on something, eats something she shouldn’t, or logs into my Facebook account and posts mean things about cats or something. Which would be mega clever of her because nobody would be the wiser since I do that too. Smooth, puppy. Smooth. I can also crate her, but then I end up feeling guilty. Like I’m some a-hole puppy veal farmer or something.

The Puppy eats everything. It makes me feel like I have a toddler in the house again, because when The Boy was a toddler, HE ate everything. You couldn’t turn your back for a second or he’d be chowing down on a throw rug or a table leg. Every single photo we have of him from birth to age 4, his entire shirt is covered in drool because of the chewing of all of the things. In 5 days time, The Puppy has already been caught eating 3 of my shoes, my expensive neck thingy from Relax the Back, multiple dryer sheets and tissues, a pencil, her leash, dried up leaves, mulch, a baseboard (she removed it from the wall and ate it on my bedroom floor), and Soft Blue Esquire. Yes. My blankie. And I think I have PTSD now after witnessing that whole situation. I’m still having flashbacks and waking up in a cold sweat, clutching onto Soft Blue like Rose clutched onto Jack until her selfish ass fell asleep and he died.

Dear Rose,

If I can fight a vicious canine to save the life of my blankie, you can sure as heck keep your privileged ass awake and share your floating door with the dude who saved your life.xoxoPatti

And to tell you the truth, I’m still in shock that The Puppy survived after eating one of The Boy’s socks. I shudder at the thought of what kinda funk his socks -THE SOCKS HE WORE IN GYM CLASS- have embedded in them. If she doesn’t either die or turn into some kind of mega comic book superhero dog after eating that business, I will be in shock. Forget about radioactive spider bites and accidents at nuclear power plants. We’re talking about tubes of absorbent cotton that were on an 11-year-old boy’s disgusting feet all day.

The Boy covered in slobber and the remnants of a pile of dirt he ate.

The Cat has about had it too. I know I talk about what an ass pain our feline is, but that girl is chill. Sure, she talks a lot. But so do I. She is like the kitty cat version of me, combined with the kitty cat version of Hyde from That 70’s Show. Whatever will be will be. She’s easy going as hell. Ya know how I go to my Pattitopia when something unpleasant is happening around me? She goes to her Catitopia. Her eyes glaze over and you can see her leaving her body to go run free in a field of catnip and Fancy Feast Tuna Feast. In the past few days, The Cat has been cowabunga jumped on, knocked over, chewed on, pushed off of furniture, licked, tripped, barked at, and nearly butt raped. The Cat will honestly put up with anything. But last night she had finally had her fill and she was possessed by a kitty demon. Her ears laid back, she growled, and she went total badass Mohammed Ali on The Puppy’s face. It was like an interspecies Fight Club and she was Tyler Durden and The Puppy was some drunk ass hobo she found in the alley. I had hoped that the repeated face punching would at least make some impact on The Puppy, but since The Cat has no claws I guess it just wasn’t a memorable ass whooping. This morning she was pissing The Cat off yet again, and I am thisclose to duct taping some toothpicks onto The Cat’s paws so she can kick some butt.

For a tiny little ball of fluff, this animal also barks a lot. She’s like a little cloud floating around the house with thunder sounds coming out of it. And she’ll bark outta nowhere at absolutely nothing. She can be in a totally comatose state, when suddenly something invisible pisses her off. Like an a-holey Casper the Ghost who hates dogs. Or a ghost cat, or something. And as you guys know, I scare easily, and I scare a lot. And there is absolutely zero way of preparing oneself for a peacefully sleeping dog to suddenly jump 5 feet in the air and bark so loud that the sound waves actually force urine out of your own pee hole. Zombies I can be on alert for. They make those dumb ass moaning noises and shuffle their feet. Burglars? Yes. They pick locks and break glass and set off alarms. But that outta nowhere, erratic, canine insanity? There is no preparation for that. All you can do is get used to the screaming and pooping of your pants 10 times a day. Sometimes she does actually bark at real things. And by “real” I mean things that I can see but are in no way threats to her or anyone else. Yesterday she stood by our pool and barked at a ball that was floating in the water for approximately 2 hours. Then when she came inside, she barked at The Boy’s backpack for 30 minutes. Then last night she decided that the Halloween candy bowl was her arch enemy, and barked and growled at that for awhile. I had to put it in the closet in between doorbell rings. I was about to go all Elaine Bennis on her ass and re-locate her furry butt, but that takes energy. And planning. And driving. And I am far too lazy for all of those things.

And just so you guys don’t think I’m an animal hating a-hole, ya gotta remember one thing: I am nothing if not a sucker. After writing all this stuff about The Puppy, she came up and starting barking at me, like she KNEW I was talking shit about her. And I picked her up and starting talking to her in an embarrassingly pathetic baby talk voice. I said “You’re soooo fluffy and cuddly and snuggly and I would totally eat you but you’re so furry that if I ate you it would clog up my throat and I’d have to drink a case of beer just to push all the fur down and then I’d be drunk and I’d vomit all the fur back up and it would be the worlds biggest beeriest hairball ever, so I am not going to eat you, but you are soooo fluffy!”

That’s honestly exactly what I said.I know. I have issues.

And just now The Dog finished drinking her water and then walked out of the room carrying the empty bowl, sat it down on the hall rug, picked up some mulch that she carried in from the yard earlier, put them in the bowl, then picked up the bowl again and took it to the living room. There is definitely a variety of odd noises coming from that direction, but I’m kinda at the point where I don’t even want details. Every time I enter a room there is a new surprise waiting for me. And not the balloons and 4 foot, million dollar check kinda surprise. It’s more like the Jerry Springer paternity test “You are not the father” kind. The discoveries are never, ever good. But let’s face it, even if I did get a giant check and balloons, she’d eat them before I got to them. And that’s a disappointment that I just can’t take. I’d rather watch a dog poop out a baseboard than a pile of paper bits that used to be a million bucks.

8 Responses to “For once I’m glad that The Hub never bought me a finger monkey, cuz if he did, this puppy woulda eaten it by now.”

Bless you for watching your sister’s dog. I have a rescue doggie that is practically perfect-the only thing she does is go through the trash if it’s left out, and pee/poop in the house if we don’t take her out every half hour or so. Plus she has separation anxiety when we leave her alone and shriek-barks. Other than that, she doesn’t make a peep. But my hubby still feels totally invaded and inconvenienced. Sigh.

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